My country was in flames and then
I saw it there: the British flag,
a friendly face.

It was the worst day of my life.

Huddled and cold we were.
The trip was long, the night was dark,
but a warm soup lit our hearts.

It was the worst week of my life.

Daily shopping, the school run,
read the papers, bask
in the warmest winter sun.

It was the worst month of my life.

Walking through the masses
my eye catches your eye.
A spark, an understanding,
a shared life – so many plans.

It was the worst year of my life.

Because it gave me hope it was the worst day of my life,
because I felt that warmth it was the worst week of my life,
because I was at home it was the worst month of my life,
because I became yours it was the worst year of my life.

Because I’m in despair, so cold,
unrooted and adrift in this barren land
in flames no more – just smouldering –
this land that they call mine.

“THE HOME SECRETARY, THERESA MAY, HAS ANNOUNCED AN OVERHAUL OF THE ASYLUM SYSTEM DURING A HARDLINE SPEECH ON IMMIGRATION. MRS MAY SAID THAT, WHEREVER POSSIBLE, ASYLUM SEEKERS WOULD BE ACCEPTED FROM TROUBLED REGIONS, RATHER THAN AT BRITISH BORDERS. SHE ALSO SAID REFUGEES COULD BE SENT HOME, ONCE THEIR COUNTRIES BECAME SAFER.”

Some years go, I worked at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, in the campus that is now called the “Harwell Oxford”, and got there every morning through a long journey involving a short car ride to Banbury train stations, two trains to Didcot Parkway (change at Oxford) and finally what should have always been a short hop on the bus from the station to the laboratory, but often became the worst part of my commute, with long and frequent delays. Didcot itself had another campus, a hi-tech looking business park called “Milton Park”. I used to look at the Milton Park shuttle buses with envy: they were frequent, free and new, with a nice exterior designed to suggest that whatever went on inside that campus was very high tech. I always wondered what they did – though I suspected it wouldn’t be as cutting edge as what we did at RAL (neutron scattering, synchrotron radiation, high-power lasers, space hardware and my speciality – theoretical physics).

Today I have had my first conscious experience of a business based at the Milton Park campus. It is certainly academic-related, but I wouldn’t say it is very high tech. I had ordered inspection copies of a couple of recent textbooks by reputable authors, from a reputable publisher. I am revamping my teaching of Quantum Mechanics and I was hunting for an introductory text on the subject that would use a modern language (Dirac notation) but without burdening the students with large mathematical preliminaries at the start of the book. I received the copies from a company (not the publisher) describing themselves as a “book services” operation, with a bill enclosed and precise instructions to either adopt the texts, return the books within 30 days or else pay a hefty bill to retain the books for my personal use. Right, so that’s what they do there.

Basically, this company working from Milton Park offers outsourcing services to publishers. What they outsource is the provision of inspection copies to academics. But the standard at which this outsourced version of the service is provided is quite different, compared to what has been the norm in the academic publishing world. Normally, in my experience, academics are allowed to keep the book for free. Because I had to return it within 30 days, I had to make a hasty decision on whether to adopt the texts, without a chance to properly compare them to those offered by other publishers. Moreover, I had to re-package the books, etc. making me waste valuable time which could have been spent writing better lecture notes for my students or – Heavens! – even doing some research.

So, yes, I always suspected what they did at Milton Park was less cutting-edge than what we were doing at Harwell – but now I know at least one company there seems to be making a negative contribution to the progress of Science.

Short-sighted politicians (especially in Germany) are ignoring the powerful symbolism of ejecting such a central Euro country (Europe is a Greek word, for heaven’s sake!), with potentially fatal consequences for our Union. Europe must be based on solidarity as well as financial convenience.

If Europe is just a marketplace, instead of a union of the most advanced countries in the world, countries that are proud of their shared heritage and above all care for the wellbeing of all their citizens, then the question of which country will be next is hard to avoid. This coyld be the beginning of the end for the Euro and even the Union.

What is remarkable, in view of recent events, in the following graph showing who owns Greek debt at present:

That’ right: France, Italy and Spain own as much Greek debt between them as Germany, the IMF and the ECB put together.

Why, then, is it widely perceived that the future of Greece is in the hands of the latter, and not the former?

I suspect it may have something to do with how much French, Italian and Spanish debt the other three own but, still, it does seem like the voice of the Mediterranean Euro nations is not being heard, and any insights into why this is the case would be appreciated.

Well over a year has passed since my last post and I think that requires an explanation. Since September 2010 I have been busy setting up a small theory outpost of the University of Kent’s Functional Materials Group at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. The new research group, which is part of SEPnet and of the Hubbard Theory Consortium, has its own blog (much more active than this one) at